When the right to life becomes the right to dictate...we've crossed the line.

There is a hearing set for today in a Fort Worth, Texas  court to determine if the local hospital district can unplug a brain-dead woman from artificial life support.  She is carrying a 22- week old deformed child which is not growing properly according to doctors who have examined the fetus through ultrasound.

It is for cases like this that the right to choose makes so much sense.  The woman had left implicit instructions with family not to prolong her life in case of  an accident and the husband and father to the unborn fetus wants to carry out his late wife’s request. I say late wife because if it were not for machines, this woman would be dead.

The typical forces are at odds here. Right to Choose versus the Right to Dictate. This is the type of case that implores me to side with the Right to chose.  I am not a huge advocate for abortions.  I wish, as a society we would do more to promote safe, affordable contraception and not have to rely on the doctors to clean up our messes. But until the state gets out of the contraception business, we are going to have abortions— legal or otherwise.

But this case is not about an abortion, as we would recognize it. It is about a fetus that is now suffering from trying to develop inside of a dead woman. But a larger issue exists here.  It is the issue of government interference in our lives. 

The very conservatives who cry out to end Roe v Wade and to hold up this Texas Law protecting an unborn fetus of a dead woman, are the same people who rant and rave about too much government interfering in our daily life.  I couldn’t agree more.  Government needs to step aside from issues like this and allow medical doctors and family to decide.

The thing I wonder the most about is who will take care of a deformed child if it even lives through birth?  Certainly the /state of Texas will not. It barley takes care of healthy children who need its support.  And will the right to lifers step forward and give the family the millions of dollars will take to maintain a life for a child that could be suffering from untold deformities and life-threatening disorders?  I think not.

Most doctors associated with this case have said the child will not develop enough for birth. But there are those who say as long as the sonogram shows a fetus, you can’t pull the plug.

This is wrong.  It is inhumane and it is way out of bounds for a society as ours to inflict a family with such continued grief.